The Burgundian army under Charles the Bold storms the Swiss garrison at Grandson in February 1476. Only two defenders survived the fight and the slaughter of prisoners that followed.

Charles the Bold

By Jonathan North

On Monday, February 19, 1476 Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy (much of what is now eastern France), joined his army beneath the gray ramparts of Grandson. Read more

‘Old Ironsides’ fires off a signal gun during the War of 1812. She never lost an engage- ment during her long ser- vice to the United States.

The USS Constitution

By John D. Gresham

Today restored to museum quality and lovingly cared for by a U.S. Navy crew, the USS Constitution, “Old Ironsides,” is the living symbol of America’s first generation of warships, built in response to external threats that a young United States would have preferred to ignore. Read more

Hell at 21,000 Feet

By Patrick J. Chaisson

Four miles above the snow-covered city of Steyr, Captain Jack Horner peered down through his Norden bombsight in a desperate attempt to identify the target. Read more

World War Armies

By Joseph Luster

In the realm of competitive World War II games, there are plenty of options out there for folks who want to go head-to-head against like-minded wargamers. Read more

Big Black River

By Kirk Freeman

Big battles make the history books. But for the soldiers, it was often the smaller, fiercer fights they remembered most keenly later in their lives. Read more

The Iron Cross

By Stephen Thomas Previtera

In most people’s mind the Iron Cross is inescapably linked to the Third Reich. Indeed, Adolf Hitler was responsible for adding a “marching swastika” front and center, to the decoration’s black core in 1939. Read more

The Memoirs of Herbert Carlton

By A.B. Feuer

Editor’s note: Noted military writer Bud Feuer especially enjoys discovering first-person accounts and diaries. He found the following in “a junk shop” written in pencil on brown wrapping paper. Read more

6th South African Armoured Division M4 Shermans firing at Monte Sole during the breakthrough to Bologna, April 1945. After early victories in North Africa, the South African contingent was kept in reserve until after the fall of Rome, June 4, 1944. The men then really proved their mettle.

Fighting from Tobruk to Milan

By Brig. Gen. (Ret.) Raymond E. Bell

The contribution of the Union of South Africa’s armed forces to the winning of World War II is little known outside South Africa itself. Read more

Maltese civilians inspect the ruins of the opera house in Valletta after heavy Axis aerial blitz, April 7, 1942. The British called Malta “the most-bombed island in the world.”

Linchpin of the Mediterranean

By Mark Simmons

It was the humid season on Malta that September of 1943. The hot Sirocco winds from North Africa blow from August to October across the cool sea, raising humidity. Read more

Members of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division march ashore at Gela, Sicily, while an LST burns off shore on the first day of Operation Husky in this 1943 painting by Navy war artist Mitchell Jamieson. Soldiers injured during the fighting can be seen being evacuated to hospital ships. Sicily became the stepping stone for the invasion of the Italian mainland.

Sicilian Slugfest

By Flint Whitlock

The island of Sicily, lying in the Mediterranean Sea between Tunisia and the toe of the Italian peninsula, is no stranger to war and conquest. Read more

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